Brazil begins operation to save threatened tribe

After months of campaigning by Survival
International, Brazil’s government has launched a major
ground operation to evict illegal invaders from the land of
the Awá, Earth’s most threatened tribe
.

Soldiers, field workers from Brazil’s indigenous
affairs department FUNAI, Environment Ministry special
agents and police officers are being dispatched to notify
and remove the illegal settlers, ranchers and
loggers – many of whom are heavily armed – from the
Awá indigenous territory in the North-Eastern Brazilian
Amazon.

In June 2013 Brazil’s military launched
a ground operation against illegal
logging around the land of the Awá. The forces closed
down at least eight saw mills and confiscated and destroyed
other machinery, but they did not remove the loggers and
ranchers from inside the Indians’ land.

An Awá man told
Survival, ‘For a long time we’ve been asking for the
invaders to be removed… we don’t want to see the loggers
destroying our forest. We like to see the forest
standing.’

Since the launch of the
campaign in April 2012, Survival’s supporters have sent
more than 55,000 letters to Brazil’s Minister of
Justice, urging him to evict the invaders, and have spread
the campaign’s awáicon logoaround the world’s landmarks, such as Brazil’s
Sugarloaf Mountain, South Africa’s Table Mountain, San
Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and the Eiffel Tower in
Paris.

As a result of the global campaign, the Awá
were put at the top of FUNAI’s priority list in April
2012, but it has taken the government until now to start
evicting the illegal invaders, while more forest has been
destroyed.

The Awá are one of the last nomadic
hunter-gatherer tribes in Brazil and depend entirely on the
rainforest. They have been finding it increasingly difficult
to find game and are scared to go hunting for fear of
encountering the armed loggers.

Around 100 Awá are uncontacted and are
particularly vulnerable to attacks and the spread of
diseases to which they have little immunity.

Survival has
welcomed the start of the evictions operation, and is now
urging the Brazilian authorities to put in place a long-term
solution to stop the invaders from returning, and to
guarantee the safety of the 450-strong tribe.

Survival’s
Director Stephen Corry said today, ‘This is a momentous
and potentially life-saving occasion for the Awá. Their
many thousands of supporters worldwide can be proud of the
change they have helped the tribe bring about. But all eyes
are now on Brazil to ensure it completes the operation
before the World Cup kicks off in June, and protects Awá
land once and for
all

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